Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Tony’s opponents pull out of lawsuit
Questions still surround sheriff ’s alleged record
Two political opponents of Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony have withdrawn their lawsuits claiming he has a criminal record that makes him ineligible to be sheriff. But Tony’s troubles may be far from over.
In the suits, former Broward Sheriff Scott Israel and former sheriff ’s candidate H. Wayne Clark claimed Tony has concealed a felony record in his home state of Pennsylvania, where Tony has admitted shooting a man to death as a teenager, an act he called self-defense.
Israel and Clark both claimed the full story had not come out, but they withdrew their suits this week under pressure from Tony’s attorney to provide evidence or face sanctions from the court.
Clark now hopes to reinstate his lawsuit, claiming he had just received new evidence, but he refused to identify what it is.
The lawsuits, as well as myriad other allegations surrounding Tony, have raised questions about his future as sheriff, just two years after Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him to replace Israel. Tony won the November election with 63 percent of the vote to Clark’s 32 percent.
Battling in court
Tony’s win in court remained clouded Wednesday by both sides’ insistence that the fight is far from over. Within 24 hours of Clark backing out of his lawsuit, Clark was already backpedaling to try to keep the case going. And Tony’s legal team stood firm in declaring victory.
Tony’s lawyer, Michael Moskowitz, said the case had been contesting the election and that once the plaintiffs withdrew, they closed the door on it for good. A case contesting an election has to be filed within 10 days of the election’s certification, a deadline that passed in late November. “There is no procedure to reopen it,” said Moskowitz. “They are out. O-U-T, capital letters.
“These people yelled and screamed and pounded the table, but when push came to shove they disappeared into the night.”
According to Moskowitz, the timing of the withdrawals was not coincidental.
Earlier this month, Tony served Clark and Israel with a notice of an intention to seek sanctions if they did not show their evidence or drop their lawsuits. The paperwork is not a part of the court record, Moskowitz said. The threat of sanctions gave Tony’s opponents three weeks to take action. Those three weeks ended Tuesday.
Efforts to reach Israel on Wednesday were unsuccessful. Israel’s lawyer, Darren Covar, declined to discuss Israel’s motives in withdrawing but insisted it was not because he changed his mind about Tony’s qualifications.
“I still feel very strongly about the merits of the case,” Covar said.
Deciding to withdraw
Clark said he withdrew because it relied too much
on Tony being transparent about information he does not want to disclose. “Sealed and expunged juvenile records are protected in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Without Greg Tony’s truthful transparency to our community about his past, he will continue to hide behind government and special interests.”
But early Wednesday, Clark said he obtained additional information prompting him to reopen the case, a legal move Moskowitz dismissed as impossible.
“While I’ve always known there was something there, had I been given this information at the time, I never would have filed the motion to withdraw,” Clark said Wednesday afternoon.
Clark declined to describe the information he received, but said he would be moving to vacate his withdrawal to revive the lawsuit. As of early Wednesday evening, he had filed no such motion.
The original lawsuit was filed by Clark four days before the Nov. 3 election.
It sought to have Tony disqualified from running, but it was filed so late that it had no impact.
Clark revised the lawsuit after the election, and
Israel, Tony’s predecessor and August Democratic primary opponent, joined that lawsuit as a plaintiff.
Tony was a juvenile when he was accused in the 1990s of murdering another teenager at his Philadelphia home.
The accusation came to light a year after Gov. DeSantis appointed Tony to replace Israel. Tony never disclosed it as he applied for law enforcement positions from the beginning of his career through his appointment.
Last week Circuit Judge William Haury said it was Tony who was required to obtain the decisive records and turn them over to the court. That order is now legally null and void because of the lawsuit withdrawals.
In a separate lawsuit, Tony told an attorney he has no criminal past that he can recall. That case, which is about compensation for three high-ranking deputies who resigned before Tony became sheriff, is still continuing. Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is continuing its investigation into whether Tony’s failure to disclose his past violated state law.